Travels with Charley Based on the Book by John Steinbeck

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LITPLAN TEACHER PACK™ for Travels with Charley based on the book by John Steinbeck

Written by Mary B. Collins

ISBN 978-1-60249-263-9 Item No. 304531 TABLE OF CONTENTS - Travels With Charley

Introduction 5 Unit Objectives 7 Reading Assignment Sheet 8 Unit Outline 9 Study Questions (Short Answer) 13 Quiz/Study Questions (Multiple Choice) 21 Pre-reading Vocabulary Worksheets 39 Lesson One (Introductory Lesson) 57 Nonfiction Assignment Sheet 60 Oral Reading Evaluation Form 66 Writing Assignment 1 64 Writing Assignment 2 71 Writing Assignment 3 75 Writing Evaluation Form 72 Vocabulary Review Activities 81 Extra Writing Assignments/Discussion ?s 78 Unit Review Activities 82 Unit Tests 93 Unit Resource Materials 125 Vocabulary Resource Materials 149

A FEW NOTES ABOUT THE AUTHOR JOHN STEINBECK

STEINBECK, John (1902-68). Winner of the 1962 Nobel prize for literature, the American author John Steinbeck is best remembered for his novel 'The Grapes of Wrath'. Steinbeck's story of a family of farm workers migrating from Oklahoma to California describes the hopelessness of the Great Depression era.

John Ernst Steinbeck was born on Feb. 27, 1902, in Salinas, Calif. He took classes at Stanford University for several years but left without a degree. He worked as a laborer to support himself while he wrote. Steinbeck's first novel was published in 1929, but it was not until the publication of 'Tortilla Flat' in 1935 that he attained critical and popular acclaim.

He followed this success with 'In Dubious Battle' (1936) and 'Of Mice and Men' (1937). 'The Grapes of Wrath' (1939) earned for Steinbeck a Pulitzer prize. In these works Steinbeck's proletarian themes are expressed through his portrayal of the inarticulate, dispossessed laborers who populate his American landscape. Both 'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Grapes of Wrath' were made into motion pictures.

In 1943 Steinbeck traveled to North Africa and Italy as a war correspondent. Some of his later works include 'Cannery Row' (1945), 'The Pearl' (1947), 'East of Eden' (1952), 'The Winter of Our Discontent' (1961), and 'Travels with Charley' (1962). He also wrote several motion-picture scripts, including adaptations of two of his shorter works-'The Pearl' and 'The Red Pony'. Steinbeck died in New York City on Dec. 20, 1968.

---- Courtesy of Compton's Learning Company

4 INTRODUCTION

This LitPlan has been designed to develop students' reading, writing, thinking, and language skills through exercises and activities related to Travels With Charley. It includes 19 lessons, supported by extra resource materials. There is an extra project at the end which would add 8 lessons.

The introductory lesson introduces students to the idea of traveling in America. Following the introductory activity, students are given a transition to explain how the activity relates to the book they are about to read. Following the transition, students are given the materials they will be using during the unit. At the end of the lesson, students begin the pre-reading work for the first reading assignment.

The reading assignments are approximately thirty pages each; some are a little shorter while others are a little longer. Students have approximately 15 minutes of pre-reading work to do prior to each reading assignment. This pre-reading work involves reviewing the study questions for the assignment and doing some vocabulary work for 8 to 10 vocabulary words they will encounter in their reading.

The study guide questions are fact-based questions; students can find the answers to these questions right in the text. These questions come in two formats: short answer or multiple choice. The best use of these materials is probably to use the short answer version of the questions as study guides for students (since answers will be more complete), and to use the multiple choice version for occasional quizzes.

The vocabulary work is intended to enrich students' vocabularies as well as to aid in the students' understanding of the book. Prior to each reading assignment, students will complete a two-part worksheet for approximately 8 to 10 vocabulary words in the upcoming reading assignment. Part I focuses on students' use of general knowledge and contextual clues by giving the sentence in which the word appears in the text. Students are then to write down what they think the words mean based on the words' usage. Part II nails down the definitions of the words by giving students dictionary definitions of the words and having students match the words to the correct definitions based on the words' contextual usage. Students should then have an understanding of the words when they meet them in the text.

After each reading assignment, students will go back and formulate answers for the study guide questions. Discussion of these questions serves as a review of the most important events and ideas presented in the reading assignments.

After students complete reading the work, there is a vocabulary review lesson which pulls together all of the fragmented vocabulary lists for the reading assignments and gives students a review of all of the words they have studied.

5 A lesson is devoted to the extra discussion questions/writing assignments. These questions focus on interpretation, critical analysis and personal response, employing a variety of thinking skills and adding to the students' understanding of the novel.

There is a group project in this unit. Students choose a city in America, research a variety of aspects about that city, prepare a written report for grading, and give an oral report to the class. These reports can easily be compiled into a published booklet for all the students to have.

There are three writing assignments in this unit, each with the purpose of informing, persuading, or having students be creative or express personal opinions. In the first writing assignment, students write to inform; it is their written report about their cities. The second writing assignment is creative: students create an episode to add to Travels With Charley. The third writing assignment is both creative and persuasive. Students write an episode to add to the book, but this time the episode has to be Steinbeck’s encounter with a Cheerleader, persuading her to change her attitudes.

There is a nonfiction reading assignment. Students must read nonfiction articles, books, etc. to gather information about their themes in our world today.

The review lesson pulls together all of the aspects of the unit. The teacher is given four or five choices of activities or games to use which all serve the same basic function of reviewing all of the information presented in the unit.

The unit test comes in two formats: multiple choice or short answer. As a convenience, two different tests for each format have been included. There is also an advanced short answer unit test for advanced students.

There are additional support materials included with this unit. The Unit Resource Materials section includes suggestions for an in-class library, crossword and word search puzzles related to the novel, and extra worksheets. There is a list of bulletin board ideas which gives the teacher suggestions for bulletin boards to go along with this unit. In addition, there is a list of extra class activities the teacher could choose from to enhance the unit or as a substitution for an exercise the teacher might feel is inappropriate for his/her class. Answer keys are located directly after the reproducible student materials throughout the unit. The Vocabulary Resource Materials section includes similar worksheets and games to reinforce the vocabulary words.

The level of this unit can be varied depending upon the criteria on which the individual assignments are graded, the teacher's expectations of his/her students in class discussions, and the formats chosen for the study guides, quizzes and test. If teachers have other ideas/activities they wish to use, they can usually easily be inserted prior to the review lesson.

The student materials may be reproduced for use in the teacher's classroom without infringement of copyrights. No other portion of this unit may be reproduced without the written consent of Teacher's Pet Publications, Inc.

6 UNIT OBJECTIVES

1. Students will become better acquainted with the United States.

2. Students will discuss many issues facing cities and towns today.

3. Students will practice reading out loud and silently.

4. Students will answer questions to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the main events and characters in Travels With Charley, as they relate to the author's theme development.

5. Students will research and share information about major U. S. cities.

6. The writing assignments are designed for several purposes: a. To check and increase students reading comprehension b. To make students think about the ideas presented in the novel c. To encourage logical thinking d. To provide the opportunity for students to practice good grammar and improve their use of the language e. To encourage students' creativity f. To practice writing practical letters of request

7. Students will participate in group activities to improve their personal interaction skills.

8. Students will study vocabulary from the book to improve their own vocabularies.

9. Students will practice their public speaking skills.

7 READING ASSIGNMENTS Travels With Charley

As you know, Travels With Charley is divided into four main parts. However, within each part there are divisions. Because there are different editions in use, the page numbers for the reading assignments change. We have gone through the text and marked each division in the story as a "chapter" and given it a number (in chronological order). We thought this would be the easiest way to make the reading assignments clear to you. As an additional help, we have also written in the beginning sentence or phrase from each "chapter."

Assignment # "Chapters" Begins with the phrase or sentence... 1 1 - 4 "When I was very young . . ." 2 5 - 6 "Preparation for the Winter in New England is drastic." 3 7 - 8 "Niagara Falls is very nice." 4 9 - 12 "Chicago was a break in my journey . . ." 5 13 - 15 "The next passage in my journey is a love affair." 6 16 - 21 "Now, there is not any question that Charley was rapidly becoming a tree expert." 7 22 - 26 "When I started this narrative . . . "

Date Assigned Assignment Completion Date 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 UNIT OUTLINE Travels With Charley

1 2 3 4 5

Introduction City Assign. PVR 1-4 Study ??s 1-4 Study ?? 5-6 Travelogue Writing 1 Read 5-6 PVR 7-8

6 7 8 9 10

Library Day PVR 9-12 Study ??s 9-15 Read 22-26 Writing 2 Assign 16-21 Assign ??s

11 12 13 14 15

Study ??s 16-26 City Extra Begin City Presentations Discussion Review Test Presentations Questions

16 17 18 19 20

Travel Agent Project Work Project Work Project Work Project Work Assign Project

21 22 23 24

Writing Assignment Presentations Presentations Presentations

9 LESSON ONE

Objectives 1. To introduce the Travels With Charley unit 2. To distribute books, study guides and other related materials

NOTE: Prior to this lesson, go to your local travel agency, library, or video store to find a travelogue of America. Try to find one that gives information about a wide variety of things to see and do in America (as opposed to one just about national parks, only about the Grand Canyon, or any other particular point of interest.)

If no film is available (or if you prefer not to use a film), a good alternative activity is to have prepared a bulletin board titled GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH AMERICA on which you have posted a collage of pictures of points of interest in America. Use that bulletin board as a starting point for a discussion about all the things the U. S. Has to offer. Ask your students where they have traveled in the United States, where else they have lived, or what things they have heard about that they would like to see.

Activity #1 Show the film or hold a discussion as directed above. Make the transition to the book by noting that the book students are about to read is a story about a man who traveled across the United States with his dog, Charley.

Activity #2 Distribute the materials students will use in this unit. Explain in detail how students are to use these materials.

Study Guides Students should read the study guide questions for each reading assignment prior to beginning the reading assignment to get a feeling for what events and ideas are important in the section they are about to read. After reading the section, students will (as a class or individually) answer the questions to review the important events and ideas from that section of the book. Students should keep the study guides as study materials for the unit test.

Vocabulary Prior to reading a reading assignment, students will do vocabulary work related to the section of the book they are about to read. Following the completion of the reading of the book, there will be a vocabulary review of all the words used in the vocabulary assignments. Students should keep their vocabulary work as study materials for the unit test.

Reading Assignment Sheet You need to fill in the reading assignment sheet to let students know by when their reading has to be completed. You can either write the assignment sheet up on a side blackboard or bulletin board and leave it there for students to see each day, or you can "ditto" copies for each student to have. In either case, you should advise students to become very familiar with the reading assignments so they know what is expected of them.

58 WRITING ASSIGNMENT 1 Travels With Charley Writing To Inform

PROMPT Travels With Charley is in its own way a big informative essay. Steinbeck informs us of what he found in his travels across America. He didn’t travel to every city, and, certainly, cities have changed since he wrote this book. Even his home town had changed in the number of years it had been since he had been there. Your project is to look at just one city but to do so in detail. If everyone in the class picks a different city and shares the information with everyone else in class, we will have a new portrait of urban America. Although your report won’t be written as an informative travelogue, you can make the report interesting to read–not just a list of facts and figures.

PREWRITING Gather your facts together for each of the categories listed. That may mean simply reorganizing note cards or pieces of paper; it may mean reorganizing your facts in a word processing program; it may mean rewriting your facts on one page for each topic. Look at your facts within each category. Eliminate facts that are duplicated. Try to see what the most logical order of presentation would be to make the ideas flow from one to another. Number or reorganize your facts into this order. Now, in what order would the categories you have flow best? Reorganize the categories into that order.

DRAFTING Your final, written report should have an introduction and should be clearly organized into sections for each of the required categories of information (and any other categories you feel are appropriate to add for your particular city). Include any appropriate drawings, maps or pictures in your written report. Try to think of an interesting way to present your facts rather than just writing them all in simple sentences. Your report should also have a concluding section. In your conclusion, give your own thoughts about the information you have found, your thoughts about the city.

PROMPT When you finish the rough draft of your composition, ask a student who sits near you to read it. After reading your rough draft, he/she should tell you what he/she liked best about your work, which parts were difficult to understand, and ways in which your work could be improved. Reread your paper considering your critic's comments, and make the corrections you think are necessary. Ask your classmate what he/she thought of each of the characters/events you chose for your assignment.

PROOFREADING Do a final proofreading of your paper double-checking your grammar, spelling, organization, and the clarity of your ideas.